Editorial Malfunction at India Today

An outrageous, but somewhat predictable editorial malfunction in India Today led to some confusion about whether the magazine wants to object to objectification of women or encourage it.

Sex sells, so sell it

As everyone knows, India Today has difficulty selling content and must rely on pictures of scantily dressed women to attract readers, who, of course come there for the content. But things went a bit too far when the survival mechanism provided a collection of “wardrobe malfunctions” of 2013 – which predictably had little to do with the clothes in question and were more about parts of the body even risky clothes intended to keep covered getting accidentally exposed.

I think the note telling men that it was a new year gift to compensate for an otherwise rough year that saw them deprived of acceptance for a good lot of “fun” went missing somewhere. Regardless, I’m sure readers get the message loud and clear. Don’t misbehave with women, but if they wear clothes that accidentally display interesting bits, it is quite fashionable to create a show out of it.

Not being the kind of people who’d drape their own shirt over a woman unwillingly bared, India Today decided to topple off to the other side. Surely a woman accidentally showing more of her body means she wants people to stare at it, yes? Isn’t this what every red blooded mard should do?

Essentially, India Today has “packaged” opportunities to lech at women. While the actual “malfunction” can’t be shown, nothing prevents showing the clothes, explaining what happened, and leaving it to lecherous imaginations, right?

So, while media may be “leading” the fight against sexual exploitation of women, apparently expecting them to not create special packages for lechers is a bit too much. After all, it is the lechery that is bad. Cataloguing missed opportunities of getting an eye full is journalism.

Wardrobes may have malfunctioned, or it may simply be clothes that ended up revealing more than designed, but the editorial malfunction at India Today seems to be by design.

Or perhaps, India Today has had enough of objecting to objectification of women.